Reforming the South African health care system

South Africa's success in reforming its health care delivery system will depend very largely on its success in reforming its shattered political and economic structure. In this article, the author describes the social, political, and economic factors that dominate the South African scene and suggests the alternative courses that are available to bring the country out of its apartheid past. Both South Africa and its internal and external critics will have to approach the task with patient understanding and flexibility to achieve lasting and satisfactory results.     

Assessing the performance of a development bank

The performance of a development bank can be assessed on the basis of ‘financial function’ and ‘development function’ criteria. While the financial function measures its operational efficiency in terms of the profitability of its investment operations, the developmental function evaluates its allocational efficiency as reflected by its investment activities for the economic development of the country and the stimulation of the capital market. The objective of this paper is to appraise the performance of the Industrial Finance Corporation of India, in terms of its profitability. The profitability has been analysed with reference to its (i) operating earnings, (ii) cost of operations, (iii) gross and net profit margins on the loan portfolio and (iv) rate of return and capital appreciation on the securities portfolio. The paper concludes with suggested measures to improve its profitability in future.     

Open innovation and quality management: the moderating role of interorganisational IT infrastructure and complementary learning styles

This study seeks to explain the influence of quality management on the relationship between open innovation and performance. We propose that, to contribute to open innovation performance, an organisation’s commitment to quality improvement must rely on the combination of its own resources and capabilities and its open innovation partners’ resources and capabilities. Specifically, we examine the moderating role of an interorganisational IT infrastructure and the complementarity of learning styles among an organisation committed to quality improvement and its supply network. Using data from 270 managers of European firms, our results show that the negative effects of quality management on open innovation performance can be overcome by complementing the organisation’s learning style with that of its open innovation partner, particularly, its supply network, and, most importantly, obtaining information technologies compatible with those of its supply network members.     

Planning for Giro

Giro's recent commercial successes in the U.K. have been widely reported. The reconstruction of its capital and its plans to provide wider banking services have been publicly debated.In this article Alfred Singer, a past Chairman of the Society for Long Range Planning, describes the planning process in Giro—its past achievements and mistakes; its present challenges; and its future aspirations.     

本土代工企业自创国际品牌——演进路径与能力构建

提升本土代工企业的创新能力、创建自主品牌、实现转型升级是当前产学研界需要迫切解决的问题之一.从核心能力和价值链活动两个维度构建代工企业自创国际品牌演进路径的理论模型,并以捷安特自行车的品牌创建为例,对其演进路径和能力构建进行实证分析.研究结果表明,代工企业自创国际品牌的过程就是企业在核心能力持续升级的基础上不断扩展价值链活动范围的过程.知识获取、内化和创新能力决定着代工制造厂商能否顺利升级到代工设计厂商,能否突破对生产和设计能力的路径依赖,主导核心能力向品牌运营方向发展,决定着代工设计厂商向自主品牌厂商跨越的成败.结合代工企业的特定优势和依据行业特征构建国际品牌资产、提升品牌的国际化运营能力是本土企业拓展国际市场并成为国际品牌的根本保障.     

Leading beyond the bottom line

Do physician executives approach managing and leading health care organizations like a CEO of a Fortune 100 company? Or does their training as physicians first give them a unique perspective, leading them to view organizational issues differently? The authors suggest that to be a physician executive is to be the practitioner, teacher, coach, and mentor for a new philosophy of leadership and management called Leading Beyond the Bottom Line. While the financial health of an organization is critical to its survival and its ability to fulfill its purpose, the trap is to focus on maximizing the bottom line. This new philosophy leads an organization to attend in equal measure to the (1) welfare of its patients, (2) its financial health, (3) the well-being of its employees, and (4) the building of its community. "The Optimal Organization" is one in which these four objectives are seen not only as related, but interconnected, and the goal is to maximize all of them. The legitimate role of the physician executive is to manage in search of Pareto Optimum, or the maximum benefit for all four organizational objectives. Clearly, this is a tougher job than maximizing profits or just optimizing profits and patient care.     

利用产品塑造品牌:品牌的产品意义及其理论发展

在品牌理论发展和品牌营销实践中,一直存在轻"实"重"虚"的取向,导致出现轻视乃至偏离产品这一核心的"空心化"现象,对品牌产品认知的研究和营销应用尤显得不足和落后。该文以社会认知理论和现象学访谈方法,发现和定义了消费者通过意义建构而形成的品牌产品知识体系,并从其知识内容、水平、结构、发生条件、性质、隐含价值、前后向变量等方面提出了初步的理论框架。研究结果扩展了对品牌产品认知的理解只限于品牌物理特征联想及品牌功能评价的传统边界,对重新理解、定义品牌产品的营销战略价值和管理体系,促进品牌理论和品牌营销的平衡发展提供了新的依据和启示。     

电子零售渠道的建立对各方收益的影响研究

针对以往研究很少考虑厂商间横向竞争的不足,研究了某一厂商增加电子零售渠道对自身、竞争对手以及零售商收益的影响。取得以下3点主要结论:①厂商要在产品相似度较高、电子零售渠道占有率较大的情况下开展电子零售才能提高自身收益,否则反而会降低收益;而且产品相似度和电子零售渠道占有率越高,则厂商收益增加得越多,但渠道替代度的增加会导致其收益增幅的降低。②对竞争对手,其他厂商开展电子零售总会使其收益降低,但电子零售渠道占有率的变化不会令其损失有明显变化,而且产品相似度的增加还会降低其损失。③对零售商,厂商开展电子零售总会令其收益降低,而且产品相似度、电子零售渠道占有率和渠道替代度这3个因素的提高会加剧其收益下降的速度。     

债券投标专利拍卖：均衡策略与期望收益

债券投标是一种操作简易的证券投标，常用于成长型中小企业参与投标的专利拍卖。在债券投标专利拍卖中，获胜企业在其产业利润实现之后支付其报价，如果其产业利润还足以支付其报价，则支付其全部产业利润。本文建立了一个存在N个投标企业的拍卖模型，研究了在债券投标专利拍卖中，一价拍卖和二价拍卖下企业的均衡投标策略和专利持有者的期望收益，并将其与现金投标专利拍卖进行比较。研究结果发现，企业在债券投标专利拍卖中的均衡投标高于现金投标专利拍卖的均衡投标，且二价现金投标专利拍卖和二价债券投标专利拍卖的均衡投标策略不随企业类型分布的变化和参与企业个数的变化而变化；专利持有者在债券投标专利拍卖中获得的期望收益高于现金投标专利拍卖的期望收益；在债券投标专利拍卖中，二价债券投标专利拍卖的期望收益高于一价债券投标专利拍卖的期望收益。     

Competitive markdown timing for perishable and substitutable products

We model as a duopoly two firms selling their fixed stocks of two substitutable items over a selling season. Each firm starts with an initial price, and has the option to decrease the price once. The problem for each firm is to determine when to mark its price down in to maximize its revenue. We show that the existence and characterization of a pure-strategy equilibrium depend on the magnitude of the increase in the revenue rate of a firm when its competitor runs out of stock. When the increase is smaller than the change in the revenue rate of the price leader when both firms are in stock for all of the three possible scenarios, neither firm has the incentive to force its rival to run out of stock and if a firm marks its price down after the season starts, its inventory runs out precisely at the end of the season. When the increase is larger than the change of the price leader׳s revenue rate in one particular scenario, waiting until its rival runs out of inventory may be an equilibrium strategy for the larger firm even though this may lead to leftover inventory for itself. In other cases, there may be no pure-strategy equilibrium in the game. In certain regions of the parameter space, a firm׳s revenue may be decreasing in its starting inventory which shows that a firm may be better off if it can credibly salvage a portion of its inventory prior to the game. While most of our analysis is for open-loop strategies, in the final part of the paper, we show that the open-loop equilibrium survives as an equilibrium when we consider closed-loop strategies for an important subset of the parameter space.     

Shifting Concepts of Autonomy in the Hong Kong Hospital Authority

The Hong Kong Hospital Authority is the main provider of public health care services in Hong Kong. It operates 41 public hospitals, 74 general out-patient clinics and 45 specialist out-patient clinics. This article examines the reason for its establishment as a statutory body in 1990 and offers an assessment of its success in meeting the goals of the reformers. A belief that health care service delivery would be improved is largely supported by the evidence, but this may have more to do with budget and policy consistency than management autonomy and flexibility. Statutory independence, with its promise of improved efficiency, has its limits in the highly complex field of health where there are multiple players and where professional autonomy remains a key claim. In recent times, the authority has been subject to several reform attempts and, together with the SARS epidemic in 2003, these have had a significant impact on its organizational structure and practices, in particular, on its degrees of autonomy.

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A critique of some techniques of manpower forecasting at national and sectoral level

This paper examines some of the principal methods which are currently being used by manpower planners in the U.K. and elsewhere to make projections of the demand for national and sectoral manpower in the medium term.Most of the paper deals with methods related to the Cobb-Douglas production function, and it is suggested that the “MRP” method developed by the OECD is, despite its apparent naïveté, the technique that offers the most promising basis for future development, in view of its theoritical soundness, its flexibility and its lack of restrictive assumptions.     

刘克振:复制核心逻辑 全球化扩张需要具有可拷贝的单一商业模式

研发制造电脑卖给集成商,由集成商卖给最终用户,这是研华的核心模式。     

Divide and Conquer: Competing with Free Technology Under Network Effects

We study how a commercial firm competes with a free open source product. The market consists of two customer segments with different preferences and is characterized by positive network effects. The commercial firm makes product and pricing decisions to maximize its profit. The open source developers make product decisions to maximize the weighted sum of the segments' consumer surplus, in addition to their intrinsic motivation. The more importance open source developers attach to consumer surplus, the more effort they put into developing software features. Even if consumers do not end up adopting the open source product, it can act as a credible threat to the commercial firm, forcing the firm to lower its prices. If the open source developers' intrinsic motivation is high enough, they will develop software regardless of eventual market dynamics. If the open source product is available first, all participants are better off when the commercial and open source products are compatible. However, if the commercial firm can enter the market first, it can increase its profits and gain market share by being incompatible with its open source competitor, even if customers can later switch at zero cost. This first‐mover advantage does not arise because users are “locked in,” but because the commercial firm deploys a “divide and conquer” strategy to attract early adopters and exploit late adopters. To capitalize on its first‐mover advantage, the commercial firm must increase its development investment to improve its product features.     

The Impact of Product Returns and Retailer's Service Investment on Manufacturer's Channel Strategies*

We study the distribution channel decision of a manufacturer who considers whether to add an online channel (direct channel) to its brick‐and‐mortar retailer (indirect channel). The retailer faces the opportunity to invest in store assistance to help consumers choose products and thus reduce product returns. Special attention is given to the impact of product returns and retailer's store assistance investment on manufacturer's dual channel decision. We examine conditions under which the manufacturer uses dual channels and how various relevant factors affect its channel decision under two settings, depending on whether the retailer has its own online store or not. When the retailer does not have its online store, we find that (i) the addition of the direct channel raises the wholesale price; (ii) the direct channel addition hurts the retailer if the nonreplacement rate is low; (iii) the manufacturer has a lower incentive to add the direct channel when the retailer's service cost is lower or its returns reduction rate from service investment is higher; and (iv) the manufacturer should treat its own returns handling cost as a key factor in its channel structure decision. In addition, when the retailer operates an online store, we find that the manufacturer may have an incentive to add a direct channel such that both firms own direct channels.     

The Firm as a Means of Concealing Information

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that a firm may owe its continued existence to its attempts to conceal information from its competitors about the unknown characteristics of a certain factor, not just to its savings on market transaction costs, its team‐working, risk‐sharing, or the encouragement of ex ante specific investment. This is because the existence of a firm contract severs the relationship between the factor market and the product market, thereby making it difficult for outsiders to observe the marginal contribution of the intermediate factor and make statistical inferences about the factor's unknown characteristics. Furthermore, an optimal contract is determined by a trade‐off not only between traditional risk‐sharing and incentive, but also between the incentive and information concealing. Finally, we show that this latter kind of trade‐off also affects the position of the optimal boundary of the firm.     

彭国瑞：8年创建一个新嘉吉

这家企业似乎总是笼罩着一层神秘的面纱一它低调得令人难以置信,创立145年来,始终没有上市,而且很少接受媒体访问;它常常被斥责为“操纵粮价的幕后黑手”,被认为和另3家跨国粮商一起,操控全球粮食及诸多食品的价格。     

A PARADOX OF THRIFT IN GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM WITHOUT FORWARD MARKETS

After 2008, the US personal saving rate had its strongest postwar jump, from 2% to 5%, and the investment ratio its sharpest fall from its postwar average of 16% to its lowest level of 12%. The coordination of saving and investment is analyzed here in a theoretical model of general equilibrium with rational expectations and no forward market. Shocks affect preferences for future consumption. A paradox of thrift is proven that formalizes an argument in the General Theory of Keynes but the equilibrium is a constrained Pareto optimum. Textbook fiscal policies are neutral at best, or inefficient.     

“腾工”不傻！

6月3日四川民企腾中重工与通用悍马达成谅解备忘录，腾中重工将收购悍马品牌并获得其关键高级管理层及营运队伍。但主流媒体或其他权威财经网站都不看好这宗交易：花大把钞票只买悍马这个品牌是否划算？这宗交易能否跨过重重障碍最终得以成交？更有甚者直指腾中重工此举“很傻很天真”。     

EFFECT-SIZE ESTIMATION: A COMMENTARY ON WOLF AND BASSLER

Wolf and Bassler [10] have presented a general linear model approach to the estimation of a variance-accounted-for measure of effect magnitude. This commentary questions the usefulness of such a measure, citing its inconsistency with contrast estimates, problems with its interpretation in nonorthogonal designs, and its susceptibility to extraneous influence unrelated to observed differences among group means. In addition, it questions whether the term “importance” should be applied to such a measure.